Wrap-around bottle carriers must be designed to hold the packaged bottles in place to prevent them from moving toward the open ends of the carrier during shipment and handling. The necks of the bottles normally extend up through bottle neck openings in the top panel, which restricts movement of the upper portions of the bottles to a degree, while the outer heel portions of the bottles extend through cutouts in the side panels to hold the bottom portions of the bottles in place. Despite the success of such carriers it is sometimes desirable to provide even greater restriction to bottle movement, especially with respect to stabilizing the necks of the bottles. Although the bottle neck openings in the top panels are normally dimensioned so as to prevent any substantial endwise bottle movement, they are not usually small enough to prevent the bottle necks from sliding out at an angle when subjected to sufficiently strong forces. This can be evidenced in wrap-around carriers used for packaging large numbers of bottles. For example, if a wrap-around carrier is made long enough to hold twelve bottles in two rows of six bottles each, the tendency of the bottles to move out the ends of the carrier during lifting and carrying requires greater motion restriction.
One way that has been suggested to more securely grip the bottles in order to prevent movement within a carrier is to provide tabs or flaps at the heel cutouts. These retaining tabs are connected to opposite edges of the heel cutouts and provide restraint to movement of the bottoms of the bottles. This still does not prevent undue movement of the top portions of the bottles in the manner described. At least part of the problem is in the loose fit between the bottle necks and the bottle neck openings, which in large part is unavoidable since the openings have to be somewhat oversized in order to readily receive the bottle necks during the packaging operation.
A main object of the invention, therefore, is to provide a wrap-around bottle carrier having improved bottle neck retaining means. Another object is to provide such means without modifying the basic carrier design in a manner which makes it more difficult or expensive to run through a packaging machine.